Eyeglasses have been used for hundreds of years to provide vision assistance to wearers. Eyeglasses typically comprise a frame (which may also be referred to herein as “frames”) configured to retain a lens (or “lenses”). The frame includes a face member including two eyewires or rims that hold the lenses. A bridge that connects the two rims. The bridge may include a nosepiece that allows the rims to rest more comfortably on a wearer's nose. A temple member extends from the lateral side of each rim. The temple member is designed to extend rearwardly on the head of the wearer and over the ears in order to provide a resting position for the eyeglasses on the face of the wearer.
Eyeglasses provide vision assistance to the wearer in various ways. Prescription lenses provide corrective vision for the wearer, assisting the wearer in seeing near or distant objects more clearly. Eyeglasses may also provide protection for the eye of the wearer, including protection from wind or from flying debris. Eyeglasses with light blocking features are commonly referred to as sunglasses. Sunglasses may or may not include corrective lenses, but provide the benefit of blocking bright or excessive light from the eyes of a wearer.
Sunglasses may be particularly useful for a wearer participating in athletic events. In these situations, the glasses should provide vision benefits including protection from light, wind and other elements. Additionally, sunglasses for athletic events typically are typically designed to cover a wide field of vision, including both central and peripheral vision of the wearer. Accordingly, the lenses for sunglasses tend to extend across a relatively large area covering the eyes of the wearer. Often, these lenses are retained relatively close to the wearer's face in order to further limit the amount of direct light reaching the eyes of the wearer. Unfortunately, these relatively large lenses worn close to the face limit the amount of airflow across the interior surface of the lenses. This reduced airflow across the rear of the lenses results in fogging when condensation is formed on the rear surface of the lenses. Fogging of the lenses is particularly problematic in high humidity conditions, or when the athlete is perspiring.
Various arrangements have been used in the past to avoid lens fogging. For example, many sunglasses incorporate ventilation features designed to allow heat to escape from the space between the lens and the face of the wearer. Some ventilation arrangements also encourage airflow through the space between the lens and the face of the wearer. Unfortunately, these ventilation features tend to allow additional light to reach the eyes of the wearer, thus reducing the effectiveness of the sunglasses. Additionally, while ventilation is sometimes useful for a wearer, there are occasions when the ventilation may be counter-productive. For example, in high wind conditions additional ventilation may result in too much airflow across the eyes of the wearer, thus drying the eyes and generally resulting in discomfort to the wearer.
In view of the foregoing, it would be advantageous to provide sunglasses and other eyeglasses that are configured to reduce fogging without allowing a significant amount of additional light to pass through the sunglasses to the eyes of the wearer. It would also be advantageous if ventilation features provided by the sunglasses were configured to limit airflow in certain situations where additional ventilation is not desired. Additionally, it would be desirable if the anti-fogging and ventilation features were inconspicuous on the eyeglasses and seamlessly incorporated into other functional and aesthetic features of the eyeglasses.